


A Nightmare in Starling

by Solo2814



Category: A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), A Nightmare on Elm Street - All Media Types, Arrow (TV 2012), Black Canary (Comics), Green Arrow (Comics)
Genre: BAMF Laurel Lance, F/M, Gen, Headcanons Aplenty, Laurel Lance-Centric, No Thea in this, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Past Child Abuse, Past Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen, Past Rape/Non-con, Season/Series 03, Tags May Change, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-13 22:06:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16480631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solo2814/pseuds/Solo2814
Summary: A string of corpses are butchered in their sleep and Laurel Lance is forced to confront her childhood boogeyman.When the Dream Demon comes for her, can the Black Canary survive?





	1. One, Two

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween! In honor of my Favorite Holiday, I decided to combine two of my favorite fandoms into one epic story. 
> 
> For those of you who don't know, the inspiration for this story came from the bland but not terrible remake of the Nightmare on Elm Street, feature Arrow's own Katie Cassidy as the decoy protagonist. Honestly I'm just hoping for all of you to have a little fun. So sit back, relax, and enjoy your candy. （*＾3＾)

Laurel Lance awoke in suffocating blackness. She shivered in her flimsy dress. It’s cap sleeves and short skirt did nothing to stop the icy cold. All she could hear was her own panicking heart as the thick walls of shadow drew ever closer. She flailed, desperate to push back the shadows, and one of her nails caught something with a heavy rip. A silky weightless touch fell across her arm.

And just like that the she knew where she was.

This wasn’t the cold blackness of death. It was the next best thing.

Laurel forced herself to swallowed her panic. She couldn’t afford to start hyperventilating. A space this small wouldn’t have much of air. Instead she focused on her hands, on stripping the casket lining from the walls, on the movement of fabric winding around her knuckles. With her rough gloves in place, she pulled back and struck the coffin with every bit of strength in her body.

The casket lid broke in a shower of splinters and dirt. She hit and clawed until her fingers bled. She didn’t stop, couldn’t stop. Not when blood invaded her mouth and eyes, salty and stinging. Not when the falling debris gashed her arms and face. Not even as the cracked wood ripped a nail out at the root. Not until the trickle of dirt turned into a flood. Until the sounds of low murmurs made their way to her ears. Until bright light and fresh air mixed with the black earth.

Dinah Laurel Lance emerged from her grave, panting and victorious. The assembled crowd gasped as she got to her feet. She laughed as she took in the shocked expressions of her parents and friends, Sara and Oliver, Thea and Ted.

Her mother stood, eyes glittering with frantic tears.

Laurel’s smile grew, reached her arms wide to embrace her namesake.

Which left her totally unprepared for the sucker punch that slammed across her cheek.

“This is the most ungrateful thing you’ve ever done.” Her mother spat.

Laurel held her stinging cheek, confused, “Mom?”

Unperturbed, the elder Dinah’s rant continued. “We go through all the trouble and expense to give you a decent funeral and you go and waste it, you selfish, spoiled brat.”

She stared at her mother. At the woman who, after her first break-up, held a crying Laurel for hours to let her know that she was still loved. A figure dressed in black leather bustier slid forward to stand across from Laurel.

It was Sara, or a sort of Sara. The thing wore her sister’s face, a mockery of her Canary uniform but with none of Sara’s warmth or strength. Only a sneer of pure hatred.

“I knew this was a waste of time.” She groused, “She did this just to copy me.”

The almost Sara spat on the ground. “And you couldn’t even do that right. You always were the cheap knock-off of me.”

Behind the women, her Father ignored them, enamored with a fifth of vodka.

Laurel spun seeking one sympathetic face. All she saw were angry glares and mutters. Except for an elaborate throne where Felicity Smoak lounged in a tight red dress and a golden crown. John stood at her back, dressed in motley. Oliver sat at her feet, a dog leash around his throat.

“Ollie?”

Her ex barked in response.

Sweet Merry Hell, what was going on?

Her gaze returned to her mother, who sighed and shook her head. “I guess there’s no help for it. We can’t waste all this.” Her mouth twisted into a disgusted line. “Not on you.”

Quentin nodded, turned to Sara and Felicity and bowed, “My Only Daughter, My Queen, With your leave.”

Felicity sighed. “If I must.” Sara’s smirk turned vicious.

Even as Laurel stepped forward, the hacker pulled out a keyboard and started mashing keys. Quick as blinking, iron chains shot from the open grave to wrap around her legs. Her body understood before her brain had even begun to process. When she slammed into the ground, her fingers dug into the earth. The chains around her ankles tighten. Her joints screamed as they were pulled, inch by slow inch, out of their sockets.

Laurel Lance gritted her teeth and refused to move.

“Now Laurel,” Not her mother cooed, “It’s better this way. You don’t actually think people will care about you if you were alive?”

In one smooth motion, Dinah Drake-Lance lifted her foot and stabbed the needle-sharp heel down on dead-center of Laurel’s hand.

She flew backwards. The pitch-black grave swallowed her like a gaping maw and she hit the casket with enough force to shatter it.

Tumbling end over end, she fell through a maze of blistering heat and angry hisses.

For a moment as she slammed into the concrete floor, Laurel saw a flash of sullen, hellish light on a razor steel.

And like that, the dull red lights, the hissing steam, the perverse heat vanished. All replaced with a familiar cool lights and damp air.

Sara stared down at her Bo staff in hand. Her expression, not the conceited sneer her dream counterpart worn, was a small frown of worry.

“You okay Sis?”

Laurel nodded weakly,

“How long was it this time?” she asked.

“Twenty minutes.”

She groaned as she got to her feet, feeling every inch of the impact on cool concrete. Sara moved to help her, but she waved her sister off. Laurel need to move, to do something. Her whole body ached as she began to strip.

“You sure you’re alright to go out.”

Sara was being cautious. Sara was right. Laurel hadn’t slept for more than an hour in a week. She felt raw and scraped down to a nub. Putting on her costume felt like falling down sandpaper stairs. The idea of going out and fighting made her want to curl up into a ball and start screaming.

But if she did that, she’d never stop.

“I can’t sleep. I can’t work.” She smiled at her sister. “Maybe I can actually win a fight this time.”

It was a bad joke. They both knew she would lose even worse than usual. But Sara didn’t argue with her. She frowned but slid besides her, reaching for uniform. Laurel turned her back and yanked her gloves on, hiding the painful red welt on her dead-center of her hand.


	2. Freddy's Coming for You

The Black Canary’s teeth creaked as she bit down her scream. Her arm snapped back to her side, the coppery stink of blood mixing with saltwater rot of the docks. The goon’s teeth flashed in a urine yellow grin as his knife flashed forward to menace her face. She pivoted and slid on the oil slick ground.  
Her mind shouted commands: stand up, fight back. She had practice this exact scenario three days ago. Her body didn’t listen. The man’s grin grew as he closed in for the final blow.  
Which he never landed as The Canary’s Bo staff crashed across his back. Sara continued her attack with a series of vicious strikes across his body and a final tap to the head. Her target slid to the ground in a boneless heap.

It had lasted less than three seconds.

Laurel panted, mind slowly catching up to her exhausted body. “I don’t know why this is so hard.”

Sara snorted, “It’s a fight, Sis; They’re kinda supposed to be hard.”

Not the ones at her gym. Not the sparring sessions where Sara pushed her to the outer limits of her sanity. They weren’t easy, but she knew what to do. She had studied martial arts for years. Less than a year ago she could get the best of two professional thugs with an umbrella and wits.

Here, now? All that just seemed to evaporate.

“You did better than I did my first time.” Sara offered with a weak smile.

Laurel rolled her eyes as she pulled herself up “You said about the last three fights.”

Sara’s smile dropped as Laurel pulled zip ties from her jacket to finish subduing their criminal. This wasn’t what she had imagined when Sara had passed her mantle to her. At the time she had been overjoyed. Finally being able to get true justice for helpless, to be able to prevent suffering rather than performing triage on a broken bleeding soul.  
Laurel Lance had spent every spare moment since Slade’s attack training. Sara and her old martial arts teacher, Ted, had improved her already formidable skills to League level. John had taught her about clearing spaces and combat awareness while Roy had taken her through the Glades, educating her on the power players and their secrets. Even Oliver had relented and shown her basic free running.

The proudest moment of her life was when the Team had called her into the Foundry and showed the Black Canary Uniform for the first time.

That had been less than two weeks ago and she had spent most of it getting injured and cleaning up after Roy and Sara. Oliver wouldn’t even let her do that much. He had seen her in one fight and had benched her indefinitely.

Her sister continued to stand on the sidelines, frowning. If she had offered to help, Laurel might have punched her.

“Maybe you just need to get some sleep? You been running on catnaps for about three days.”

“I can’t sleep, Sara.”

The nightmares. Those stupid Goddamn nightmares were ruining everything. She shuddered as she remember last night’s.

Tommy had stood over her, his head caved in and body pierced by rebar, and dumped tons of paperwork on her as he screamed “Your Fault” over and over.

They felt so real. Her chest ached at the memory of being smothered, just like her hands were raw from climbing out of her grave. Sara was looking at her; the same way she used to look at Sara when she went out to party. Laurel hated it. She was the older sister. She was supposed to worry about protecting Sara not the other way around.  
Her cell chirped, breaking the uncomfortable silence. She pulled it out and wedged the phone between shoulder and cheek as she made sure the creep won’t suffocate before the cops arrived.

“Hello.”

“ADA Lance?”

She sighed. It was the her secretary, Beth Simms. She prayed the overeager girl wasn’t still trying to score Brownie points. “Yes, Beth?”

Beth’s soft voice squeaked as she answered “There’s a man asking for you. I think he’s here about the Mandragora case.”

Laurel perked at the news. Mandragora was a major drug tzar and a constant pain in her ass, both as ADA Lance and the Black Canary. This might just be her first lucky break in a long, awful week.

“I’ll be right there.” Laurel rolled her shoulders and grinned, “At least one thing is going right today.”

Sara snorted and lead the way to their motorcycles.

* * *

Less than twenty minutes later, the Lance sisters rolled into the parking lot of the District Attorney’s office. Their wounds treated, weapons stored, and costumes had been disguised as motorcycle gear. Laurel turned to her sister. She knew Sara wasn’t one for legal miniate.

“This shouldn’t take long. You can just wait in the break room.”

Sara ignored her. Her sister’s eyes stared over her shoulder, face smoothing into the relaxed caution of combat.

Laurel turn to see Beth Simms rushed forward as fast as her heels would allow. Beth shivered violently despite the warm October night and her wool suit.

Laurel approached with a soft voice, “Beth, are you okay?”

“Well, Um, not really Ma’am.”

“The Witness?” Laurel asked,

“He’s inside. He came in about thirty minutes ago and asked for you” Beth paused, “Actually, he asked for a Dinah Lance. I thought he talking about your mother.”

Laurel winced. She hadn’t used her first name in years. She had a number of good excuses as to why but they were just excuses. The truth was being called Dinah made her skin crawl. She held up her hand and glanced back at her sister. Sara had already taken out one of her batons.

Beth trailed off with a grimace. “I told him you were on your way and he, hhe started wigging out and muttering about someone coming to get you.”

“It’s okay. We’ll take it from here.” Laurel paused and added, “Why don’t you keep Captain McGovern’s number ready? Just in case.”

Beth nodded and pulled out her phone and started dialing the head of Starling’s HRT.

The office door swung silently open for the two sisters made their way forward. The building was quiet as the grave as they made their way up the stairs to Laurel’s tiny office.

She could see the door still open from Beth’s hasty retreat. Under the soft thud of their booted feet, they could catch snips of an eerie nursery rhyme.

The witness was a handsome young man who was quite clearly coming apart at the seams. His dark hair was lank and greasy. His leg jittered, and hands never stopped plucking at his rumpled clothes. His skin was clammy, the sallow color of someone with too little sleep and too many chemicals.

As the sisters approached, he slurred out a final, “Nine, Ten. Never Sleep Again.”

His eyes, dark, bloodshot, traced the sisters’ footfalls. They were alive with desperate fire as they came to rest on Laurel’s face.

“Dinah?” He croaked in a voice as ragged as the rest of him.

Laurel’s stomach twisted in familiar disgust. “It’s, um, Laurel actually. Do you need my help?”

“Yes,” he breathed. His eyes were fixed on her, as if she were his salvation. “I had to find you, Dinah.”

“Find me?” She asked, “Specifically?”

He nodded, “Tina told us you’d be dead. She said he’d kill you first.”

Laurel breathed, trying to collect her thoughts. This man was desperate. He stank of fear, like an animal seconds before it chews off a limb. Something was coming for him; something a lot scarier than a Drug Dealer on a killing spree.

“And is Tina here, too?”

“No.” he drawled, sing-song “She’s dead. And so are Nancy and Jesse and Kristy.”

Laurel stared at this man and had no idea what to ask next. His eyes blinked long slow blinks, already at the edge of sleep.

“I have to tell you.” his voice slurred, zoning in and out of focus.

“Laurel!” Sara hissed.

She glance at her sister and followed her eyes to her witness’s hand. And to blunt silver triangle sticking out from his sweating fist.

“It’s ok.” Her hands extended, trying to defuse the situation. “No one is going to hurt you. Just put down the box knife.”

He stared at her for a moment then followed her gaze.

“This isn’t for you.” He sounded genuinely shocked “It’s for him.”

Laurel caught a shadow move in the corner of her eye. Sara edged alone the office, trying to get between the two. Laurel, returned to her witness, trying to force calm into her voice.

“Who is it for? You said you needed my help. Tell me who.”

He didn’t answer. His eyes flickered open and closed. She could see them tracking in between his lashes. His hands twitched. His jaw clenched and his arms twitched like they were fighting not to move. Like a puppet was trying to fight his master. His throat bulged around his words as he wheezed out.

“Help Us.” 

Both women lunged forward. Laurel grabbed for his arm. Sara’s baton arcing to slap the knife away. But too quick for either of them, his hand jerked across his body and tore his arm open from wrist to elbow.

Laurel lowered him to the ground as Sara raced to summon medical help. It was useless. The blade had cut so deep she could see gouges of pale bone mixed with the bloody ruin. The dead man still breathed, but only for now.

A hand, pale, fragile, but desperately strong griped her shirt. Laurel allowed herself to be brought forward to hear his words. In that same high voice, he sang out his final words.

“One, Two, Freddy’s coming for you…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so we have it. The Beast is named.
> 
> Honestly, I meant to update this yesterday but time makes fools of us all. I have a rough outline of the story and about a third of chapter three done, so hopefully I can get it to you on Tuesday or Wednesday. 
> 
> Please let me know any feedback or questions. Freddy maybe the Dream Demon but I am the Author. I feed on Reviews.


End file.
